Cyril Hare - An English Murder

"Mrs. Carstairs has been gone a long time."

Julius looked round at the devastated tea table. "We haven't left her much to eat," he observed with a huge yawn. "Briggs will have to get her some fresh tea when she does come."

Rogers said nothing. To judge by appearances, he, too, was not more than half awake. Considering the hour at which he had gone to bed that morning, he was perhaps to be excused, but Dr. Bottwink frowned at him contemptuously.

"I distinctly understood her to say that she would not be more than a minute or two," he said. "She has been gone now at least five-and-twenty minutes. Do you not find it strange?"

Sir Julius's eyes closed again. "I certainly find it very peaceful," he murmured.

Dr. Bottwink shrugged his shoulders impatiently. He was about to make some rejoinder when the door opened. It was not Mrs. Carstairs who entered, however, but only Briggs, who began to clear away the tea.

"Briggs," said the historian, "do you know where Mrs. Carstairs is?"

"No, sir. She went up to Lady Camilla's room. Has she not come down?"

"She has not come down and she has not had any tea," said Dr. Bottwink in an anxious tone.

Briggs contemplated the table in silence for a moment.

"Perhaps I had better make her a fresh pot," he suggested. "And cut some more bread and butter."

"I see. Like Sir Julius, you consider that everything is to be made right by a fresh pot of tea. Myself, I do not think so. Already some things have happened in this house that are not to be cured by pots of tea. Perhaps this is another. I do not know. I hope only that I may be wrong."

"What exactly are you getting at, Dr. Bottwink?" It was Rogers who spoke, and there was no doubt that Rogers was now wide awake.

"I do not know what I am getting at, as you put it. Perhaps it is simply that my nerves are getting at me. Merely, I ask myself—why should it take Mrs. Carstairs nearly half an hour to give tea to the Lady Camilla? Or conversely, why should it take the Lady Camilla nearly half an hour to receive tea from Mrs. Carstairs? It seems strange to me, and in a household like this everything that is strange is alarming."

"You are easily alarmed, sir."

"Very," said Dr. Bottwink simply. He fidgeted uneasily, balancing first on one leg, then on another, before turning to Briggs again.

"You are positive Mrs. Carstairs went to Lady Camilla's room?" he said.

"She went in that direction, sir."

"And since then nothing has been heard from her, or——" He paused, and went on emphatically, "—or of the Lady

Camilla?"

"No, sir."

"She went up to her room after lunch, did she not? She has not since rung her bell, or made her presence there known in anyway?"

"Not to my knowledge, sir."

"Then, Briggs, will you do me the favour of going to her ladyship's room? Knock on her door, enter if necessary—after all, you will require to take her tea away—and satisfy yourself that—that she is all right?"

Briggs, the tea tray in his hands, looked at him in astonishment.

"I will do so if you think it desirable, sir. It is not my place to enter a lady's bedroom, but——"

"At least knock on her door and get an answer if you can," said Dr. Bottwink urgently. "Go, Briggs, I beg of you!"

"Very good, sir."

With obvious reluctance, the butler went out, bearing the tray before him.

"And now," said Julius, lifting himself ponderously from his chair, "perhaps you will have the goodness to tell me what all this is about?"

Dr. Bottwink, who had been pacing the room in an access of nerves, stopped abruptly in front of him and threw out his arms.

"Sir Julius," he said, "you have told me more than once, I think, that I do not comprehend English ways and customs. But you also pointed out to me that what has happened in this house has been quite un-English. Therefore I think I have as much right as anybody to say what I believe to be the position, and why I am, as the good Rogers here puts it, easily alarmed. The position, as I see it, is this: there is a killer abroad amongst us, who has already struck once—indeed, as I think, in effect twice. I have determined in my own mind who that killer is, and if the sergeant had been content to follow my advice I think he would have reached the same conclusion. Now——"

He stopped abruptly as Briggs re-entered the room.

"Well?" he asked. "You have been to Lady Camilla?"

"No, sir," said the butler calmly. "It did not prove necessary. There is no cause for alarm. Mrs. Carstairs found that Lady Camilla was still asleep when she went up to her. She therefore decided to take the tray prepared for her ladyship to her own room and have her tea alone instead of returning here. That is all."

"So much for that!" said Julius with a snort.

"Mrs. Carstairs told you this?" asked Dr. Bottwink swiftly.

"No, sir. My daughter happened to be on the landing when Mrs. Carstairs came out of her ladyship's room and that was the information she conveyed to her. She added that Lady Camilla was not to be disturbed. Will you be requiring me further, sir?"

"So!" Dr. Bottwink turned to Julius, his normally placid features working with excitement. "Sir Julius, I intend to disturb Lady Camilla myself at once, and I only pray that I may find her still open to disturbance!"

He pushed past the astonished Briggs and dashed from the room.

"I think we had better go with him, sir," murmured Rogers to Julius, and pressed after him. Julius followed, and with Briggs in the rear they all mounted the stairs.

They came up with Dr. Bottwink outside Camilla's room. He was listening intently at the door. Evidently hearing nothing, he knocked loudly. There was no reply. He paused for a moment, then flung open the door and strode into the room, the others following nervously at his heels.

Lady Camilla was on her bed, the eiderdown drawn up to her shoulders. She lay on her side, her face turned away from the intruders. A look of intense anxiety was on Dr. Bottwink's face as he approached. He leaned over, seized her shoulder and shook it.

And Camilla started violently, sat up in bed and stared at him, bewilderment merging into indignation as she slowly awoke.

"What the hell——?" said Lady Camilla, in a voice still heavy with sleep.

"I do not know what to say," said Dr. Bottwink. "I have been very foolish. I am ashamed."

"For the matter of that, you've succeeded in making us all look pretty stupid," said Julius. "Four of us, trampling into a girl's room like that, waking her up and frightening her out of her life——"

"Do not rub it, Sir Julius. I repeat, I am ashamed. I apologize to you all."

They were speaking on the landing, whither they had withdrawn after having somehow or another succeeded in beating a retreat from the bedroom.

"I shall go now to the muniment room," said Dr. Bottwink, "and continue my work. I should never have left it. I am good for one thing only. It is a mistake to interfere in what is not one's business. This shall be a lesson to me."

"Just a moment, sir." It was Rogers who spoke. "I think you are forgetting that the matter that was worrying you in the first place has still to be cleared up."

"I do not understand."

"I thought that you were concerned because Mrs. Carstairs left the library for a few minutes and did not come back."

"Ah, that!" The historian shrugged his shoulders. "It was only because she went to the Lady Camilla that I was worried. I was not afraid for the safety of Mrs. Carstairs, no!"

"Well," said the sergeant imperturbably, "I don't see why you should be concerned for the safety of one person more than another's. My job is the safety of Sir Julius, and I am not now particularly interested in anybody else's. But since we are here, I think it would be as well to knock on Mrs. Carstairs' door and make certain that she is all right too."